China has inked an agreement with the New development bank set up by the BRICS approving a 525 million yuan loan for a solar power project in the country, an official statement said on Wednesday.
The new lender announced a 525 million yuan loan for the Shanghai Lingang Distributed Solar Power Project. This is the Bank’s first project in China, a solar photovoltaic power plant with total capacity of 100 MW to be built in Lingang Industrial Area of Shanghai.

“We congratulate on the signing of the first Chinese loan agreement with NDB. This demonstrates the strong commitment of Chinese government to support NDB in delivering its mandate of promoting infrastructure and sustainable development in members of the bank,” the Vice Finance Minister of China Shi Yaobin said on Wednesday.

Earlier this year, the BRICS Bank approved loans amounting to $900 million to green projects in each member state.

The new lender also sold 3 billion yuan ($449 million) of yuan-denominated, green bonds in China’s interbank market in July.

The NDB, headquartered in Shanghai, is considering issuing notes in South African rand, Russian rubles and Indian rupees as well.

It will lend $2.5 billion in 2017, the President of the new lender told the leaders of the bloc who had gathered in the Indian state of Goa for the annual summit in October.

The first president of the NDB, Kundapur Vaman Kamath has said there is plenty of room for new lenders like the NDB and the Chinese-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), in addition to established institutions like the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank.

“Infrastructure alone has needs globally of $1-1.5 trillion a year – all the multilateral banks put together can do maybe 15 percent of this,” said Kamath.

BRICS members, China, India and Russia are also the three largest shareholders in the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB).

Both the BRICS Bank and the AIIB will extend China’s financial reach and compete not only with the World Bank, but also with the Asian Development Bank, which is heavily dominated by Japan.